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Aphantasia: How It Feels To Be Blind In Your Mind

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Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Aphantasia: How It Feels To Be Blind In Your Mind

#1 Post by Alan H » December 23rd, 2016, 10:44 pm

Wow. Aphantasia: How It Feels To Be Blind In Your Mind

I didn't score very high on the BBC's simplified test mentioned in the article, but it's difficult to imagine a world where you can't visualise things. I scored 26/40:
Around 25% or one quarter of participants fall into this band, alongside you. It places you in the lower half of the population for imagery vividness, but your score is not unusually low.
Your score:
26/40
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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jaywhat
Posts: 15807
Joined: July 5th, 2007, 5:53 pm

Re: Aphantasia: How It Feels To Be Blind In Your Mind

#2 Post by jaywhat » December 24th, 2016, 7:22 am

got 27/40 but not sure how seriously I took it.

Maria Mac
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Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:34 pm

Re: Aphantasia: How It Feels To Be Blind In Your Mind

#3 Post by Maria Mac » December 24th, 2016, 5:49 pm

I gave myself top marks for every question because I could conjure up every image instantly and vividly.
This score suggests that your visual imagery is more vivid than usual. Scores at the upper end of this range are suggestive of ‘hyperphantasia’: exceptionally strong powers of visualisation. About 23% of people score in this range, the highest of our five bands. If you consider your imagery to be exceptionally strong, and would like to be included in future research, you can contact the team at Exeter University through this email: [email protected]
The problem my brain has is to keep focusing on what I'm doing here and now when there are so many vivid images constantly chasing each other through my mind.

The article Alan posted above is absolutely fascinating and it's worth following the links in it. And listen to Penn of Penn & Teller talking about how it feels to aphantasia and what it was like for him to find out it's a thing. Hopefully we'll hear a lot more from him about it in future. Start at 75:15.

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